What a year it has been for Stone Sour, who continue to add to their accolades by winning the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards Hard Rock Artist of the Year.

After keeping fans entertained with their covers EPs in 2016, the band hunkered down and got to work on Hydrograd, a disc Corey Taylor teased before its release as being "flat out rock and roll in its best form." The album lived up to the hype, debuting in the Top 10 and keeping the band all over the airwaves with tracks like "Fabuless," "Song #3" and "Rose Red Violent Blue" among others.

The group also took part in one of the great package tours of the summer, which paired them up with Korn and a wealth of stellar support acts, making it one hot ticket. And they've carried that momentum over into the fall with their headline run featuring Steel Panther and Cherry Bombs.

It wasn't an easy path to the title. Stone Sour faced the stiffest competition of any category in route to winning the Hard Rock Artist of the Year title, as presented by Frontiers Music SRL. Despite thousands of votes, it was a narrow margin that separated Stone Sour, The Pretty Reckless and their summer tourmates Korn, while Papa Roach, Starset and In This Moment also put up solid voting totals in one of the Loudwire Music Awards' most stacked categories.

Congrats to Stone Sour, winners of the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards Hard Rock Artist of the Year!